Allan Houston's foundation points to Pres. Obama as role model for dads

The Allan Houston Foundation sponsors annual Father Knows Best Retreats that use basketball to encourage fathers and sons to communicate with each other. (DeCrow/AP)

It only takes a minute of conversation with Ron Childs to figure out that he is absolutely crazy about his two teen-aged daughters and R.J., his 9-year-old son. Childs, a contractor from Castle Hill in the Bronx, seems ready to burst with pride as he talks about his kids. But he'll be the first to admit he doesn't always understand what his children want or need.

"There is no instruction manual for being a dad," he says.

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R.J., for example, is a basketball fiend who has been a Knicks fan since the time he could walk. So why is his favorite player Vince Carter of the New Jersey Nets?

"Kids these days," Childs says with a laugh. "I don't know what to make of that."

Childs' favorite player is Allan Houston, and not just because Houston was a star on the Knicks' last NBA Finals team, the 1999 squad that became the first eight seed to reach the championship series. Childs has attended four Father Knows Best Retreats sponsored by the Allan Houston Foundation, annual weekend camps that use basketball to encourage fathers and sons to communicate and share with each other. But the camp is not just hoops and hanging out. The panel discussions and informal conversations with other dads have made him a better parent, Childs says.

"People bring up topics that are not normally discussed by fathers," he says. "They talk about their hurts and fears. I get a lot of views, from African-American men like me, from white men, from Hispanic men."

The foundation's other primary initiative is a Business Education and Development program, and although parenting and commerce may sound as incongruous as peanut butter and gravel, in their own way they play a role in helping Houston's foundation live up to its mission: Strengthen families, encourage economic empowerment, boost education and foster spiritual growth.

"I see a movement in America of fathers and men, especially in the African-American and Hispanic communities, who say we are tired of hearing about what we are not doing," Houston says. "I think this has become even more important on the heels of President Obama's election. He is an African-American man who is successful. He takes care of his family. He is an example that you don't have to be an athlete or entertainer to be successful.

"We try to help people be better people," Houston adds.

The Knicks named Houston as an assistant to president Donnie Walsh in November, and the two-time All-Star says basketball teams, like individuals, sometimes have to reflect on their identity and direction. Houston thinks the team is heading in the right direction after hitting bottom during the Isiah Thomas era.

"I don't want to throw darts but I think we all realize we are going through a big transition," Houston says. "The organization is asking who we are and how we can be effective."

Houston knows the importance fathers can play in their children's lives -- Wade Houston wasn't just Allan's pop, he was his coach at Tennessee, and he is part of the team that produces the Father Knows Best camps. Houston has long talked about how his father was a great role model who prepared him for life's challenges.

But many men grew up with absent or distant fathers, and Houston says it is important for them to learn how to be effective parents. The chain of abandonment and neglect has to break, and that's where Houston says faith comes in.

"They don't have to depend on their own experience," he says. "They can depend on a heavenly father."

Houston, who turns 38 later this month, has always been public about his Christian faith, sometimes with ugly consequences. In 2001, Houston and teammate Charlie Ward were roundly criticized for suggesting that Jews were responsible for the death of Christ; in 2007, some Jewish groups ripped Obama for accepting campaign donations from Houston, who had sponsored a minimum $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser at his home. Friends and teammates said Houston and Ward weren't trying to be ugly or confrontational in 2001 - they were just overzealous in their beliefs, ignorant of others' feelings, and naïve about the consequences of their comments. Both ballplayers, those friends and teammates added, were chastened by that experience.

Houston has backed his faith with his money and energy for almost a decade, so he's not just another jock spouting from the Bible. The roots of his foundation go back to 2001, when Houston donated money and Knicks tickets to help kids who lost a parent during the Sept. 11 attacks. He eventually set up a charitable trust that funded several programs, including a turkey giveaway to low-income Harlem residents, a Christmas toy drive and a program that honored outstanding New York City public school teachers. In 2007, Houston founded the Allan Houston Foundation.

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Despite tough economic times - Houston says some sponsors, who in the past have included CitiGroup/Smith Barney, Lenovo and Sprint, are "re-evaluating" their relationship with the foundation - the former Garden fan favorite plans on expanding his charity's programs. The basketball program, which has conducted annual camps in New York and New Orleans since 2004, hopes to offer Father Knows Best Retreats in Atlanta and Detroit this year. The foundation also plans on establishing weekly basketball leagues in New York that will offer the same hoops-and-parenting lessons as the annual retreats, but in a concentrated form.

Houston also hopes to expand his Business Education and Development program, now in its third year, to Chicago, Oakland and other cities. The program has already offered dozens of young adults in Harlem and New Orleans the opportunity to learn how to establish their own businesses; participants spend almost six months creating business plans and meeting with lawyers, accountants, marketing experts and veteran entrepreneurs. The participants who present the most impressive business model are given office space, a team of advisers and up to $20,000 in start-up capital.

The program is helping Dennys Franklin, a 24-year-old New Yorker who earned a business degree at Penn State and a fashion design degree from the Art Institute of New York, open Daidae' an organic children's clothing business.

"School taught me to work for someone else, but this program helped me go into business for myself," Franklin says.

Childs, too, says he's benefited greatly from his experiences with the Houston foundation. He talks about participating in parenting discussions that brought more than two dozen men to tears. "We had talked about how so many of us don't make time for their kids and don't make an effort to listen to their kids," Childs says. "At the end of that session, 25 men rushed out with tears in their eyes to hug their sons."

Childs says the lessons from those retreats stick with him year-round: "We teach boys to be rough and aggressive, and I've learned you have to nurture a boy's soft side, too," he says. "You can teach him it's OK to cry, that you don't need to be the rock all the time."

Childs says he is especially moved by Wade Houston's cool compassion: "He just gives me small pearls of wisdom that help R.J. and I in life and basketball."